


so can we pretend, sweetly

by theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Fairy Tale Elements, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, POV Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, glamour, jaskier's bad luck, yennefer is the only one with common sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-26
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22413757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes/pseuds/theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes
Summary: Jaskier is a regular human bard, and Geralt could swear that yesterday he’d had regular human teeth. They’re just a little bit too long for his mouth, now- too white, too sharp. A predator’s. Jaskier clicks them together, experimentally, and winces when he bites his tongue. “Fuck anyone you weren’t supposed to?”“I don’t fuck anyone I’m supposed to,” Jaskier says, a little proudly.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 288
Kudos: 5951
Collections: Abby's Witcher Collection, GERALT AND JASKIER ARE FUCKING GAY, Identity Crisis, wiedźmin





	so can we pretend, sweetly

**Author's Note:**

> cw for briefly described animal death 
> 
> title from john my beloved by sufjan stevens because AGAIN i was listening to it. i should find a better way of titling fics but i know in my heart i never will

There are, somehow, still things that surprise Geralt. 

He’s a Witcher, older than most ever get. He’s fucking a witch. He’s met elves, dwarves, dragons. He’d accidentally got tangled up in Destiny with a capital D. He feels as though, maybe, he should get a break. Half a moment where life isn’t a godsdamned mystery he has to search and search and search to figure out. 

Jaskier is, generally, that break. He’s irritating as all hell and he gets into a truly shocking amount of trouble even for a bard, but it’s very ordinary. Jilted husbands and wives coming after him with murder in their eyes. A fever, once or twice. A drowner trying to drown him. Not particularly magical, or mysterious, or difficult to solve. 

He takes Jaskier’s chin in his gloved fingers, pulling his mouth open and holding him firmly in place as he peers inside. “What the hell have you done to your teeth?” 

Jaskier squawks, offended, yanking himself out of his grip. “What’ve  _ I _ done? What do you think I’ve done? I’m not exactly sharpening my teeth in my spare time,  _ Geralt _ , this isn’t my fault.” 

“Hmm,” says Geralt, squinting. Jaskier is a regular human bard, and Geralt could swear that yesterday he’d had regular human teeth. They’re just a little bit too long for his mouth, now- too white, too sharp. A predator’s. Jaskier clicks them together, experimentally, and winces when he bites his tongue. “Fuck anyone you weren’t supposed to?” 

“I don’t fuck anyone I’m supposed to,” Jaskier says, a little proudly. His words are a little stilted, not quite the right tone- his tongue trying to get used to his teeth, yes, but something else. A higher register, barely audible, overlaying his usual tenor. “No one of note. No one that I think would give me weird teeth. Teeth, Geralt! What am I going to do with  _ these _ ?” 

“Eat, probably.” Geralt studies them, thoughtfully- they’re not what he’s used to, but they don’t look precisely wrong. He thinks on most humans these teeth would look wrong. 

Goddamn mysteries. 

-

Next up- Jaskier’s definitely getting taller. 

“I’ve already had my growth spurt,” he says, woefully, stumbling over a dip in the road. 

“Could’ve fooled me,” Geralt mutters. He gets a crude gesture in return. 

Jaskier’s getting taller, but he’s also getting somehow lighter. Like his bones are hollowing. If he wasn’t so clumsy, crashing into everything with his newfound height, his footsteps would be nearly silent- Geralt pushes him out of the way of a ghoul and he goes flying. 

Harmless, gradual things. His hair curls around his cheekbones, just a touch more prominent. The color of his eyes goes electric. His hands, already long and slender with his particular clumsy charm, are more graceful now. 

They run into Yennefer- or, more accurately, Geralt makes just a little bit of a detour to visit her, because it’s been far too long- and she cocks her head and stares at them both. 

“What’s happened to your bard?” 

Jaskier, who’d been standing back and sulking, exchanges a confused glance with Geralt. They speak in unison. “What?” 

“For Melitele’s sake,” says Yennefer, pressing long fingers into her temples. “You  _ are _ joking, yes?” 

Both of them stay silent for a long moment, unwilling to incriminate themselves, until Jaskier unsurprisingly opens his mouth. “What do you mean, what’s wrong with me?” 

She stares at them both. Geralt doesn’t think he’s ever seen her more helplessly confused. “I- well. You’re-” Another long pause. It looks like she’s struggling to wade through their collective idiocy. “You’re- really, I can’t deal with this. I’m not. Look in a mirror, figure it out.” 

Jaskier gives Geralt a look that means something along the lines of ‘crazy witch’ and Geralt gives him a look that means something along the lines of ‘hmm’. And then he gives him another look, squinting, and- 

Well, okay. He can see what she means, actually, now that he really studies that face. “I don’t think you’re human,” Geralt says, thoughtfully. 

Jaskier gapes. “Excuse me? What the  _ hell _ is that supposed to mean?” 

Geralt gives him a bracing clap on the back and doesn’t say anything. This has been months in the making- if it hasn’t been a problem yet, he somehow doubts one will arise. Still, he’ll keep an eye on his bard. 

-

Jaskier’s eyes glow in the dark, a fact both of them find out unpleasantly when Geralt wakes to bright blue points of light above him and immediately draws his sword. He makes a half startled, half indignant noise, a little hiss in the far back of his throat. “Geralt!” 

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, flatly, and sheaths his sword. “You’re glowing.” 

“I am not,” Jaskier says, startled. “What- what does that even  _ mean- _ ” 

“Your eyes are glowing,” he clarifies, irritated although he knows it’s not Jaskier’s fault. A damn mystery. Jaskier huffs out half a sigh, pressing his fingers into his eyes like he can snuff out the light. 

“What’s happening to me?” he asks, voice smaller than Geralt’s ever heard it. (A little beast in his chest rears its head, says  _ protect protect protect _ . Geralt ignores it.) 

“I don’t know,” he admits. There’s a long moment of just quiet, and Geralt can see Jaskier in the moonlight- strange and familiar, narrow shoulders hunched in. He smells the same. It’s never changed. “We’ll figure it out.” 

A mystery. Jaskier doesn’t deserve it, really. He is a good man, irritating and flamboyant though he may be, and he doesn’t deserve whatever is happening. It doesn’t seem to hurt him, but it’s not what he knows. 

When Jaskier settles closer than usual, bedroll almost touching Geralt’s, he doesn’t complain. 

-

It’s been harmless. Sharp teeth, his eyes, his hair and stature and weight and voice. An outside change, but just the same Jaskier on the inside. He gets more attention than before when they stop for the night in taverns, men and women giving him interested looks. 

Except- one day, when they’re traveling in between- it’s near dusk, a purple sort of light over everything, and a deer bounds into their path and Jaskier is off like a shot after it. Geralt is so startled he only stares into the break in the trees where he’d disappeared for a long moment, before he grunts out a low “ _ fuck _ ” and drops Roach’s reins to follow. She snorts and he gives her hardly a backward glance, because he knows the furthest she’ll go is to a patch of grass. 

When he finds his bard- and it takes a damn long time to do it, infuriatingly- he’s crouched over the deer’s fucking body, blood all down his chin and a wild, hunted look in his eyes. When he sees Geralt he goes leaping back, and he thinks for one horrible moment that he might run, but-

“Holy fuck,” he says, instead, voice faint. Geralt can hear how hard his heart is pounding. “Geralt, I don’t- I don’t know why I did that, holy  _ fuck _ .” 

“Hmm,” says Geralt, because he doesn’t know what else to say. The sharp teeth make sense- there is a ragged tear in the deer’s throat. He thinks idly about drawing his sword and immediately feels sick because this is  _ Jaskier _ . 

“I don’t know why I did that,” Jaskier repeats- he’s swiping at the blood on his chin, and he smells terrified. His eyes are not sightless as they should be in the dark, and they look at each other, blue and gold. 

There is a long silence, and Geralt bends and pulls the deer onto his shoulders. No use wasting good meat, and they’re several days out. 

He realizes, tasting the air, that the sweet false scent Jaskier has carried on him since the day they met is gone. He smells like Jaskier under it- forest, almond oil. Undiluted. A glamour faded. He’s never been human. It’s a strange thing to know, and even stranger because Jaskier doesn’t. Whatever this creature is is what he is. He looks at those teeth, bloody, those electric eyes. “C’mon,” he grunts. Again, softly: “we’ll figure it out.” 

-

Geralt doesn’t like to ask about people’s pasts- it seems to him that information unoffered is that way for a reason. But as he looks at Jaskier, familiar and strange and confused, flickering yellow in the firelight, he figures he should probably grow a pair. 

“You have fairy blood,” he says, bluntly. Jaskier glances up, shoulders hunching in a little more- his face is so drawn it pangs at Geralt’s stomach. “Do you know where it might’ve come from?” 

“No,” he says, uncharacteristically solemn. “No, I- if anyone was fae, they never told me.” 

“Hmm.” A long moment- the meat smells good, cooking over the fire. A nice positive. Geralt sighs, gives up any pretense that he’s not going to help Jaskier understand. “How do you feel about a trip home?” 

-

He lived in a medium-sized Northern town, and he was to be a viscount. He looks nervously at Geralt as he leads the way up to that grand house, tries to explain it: “I left when I was ten, I never wanted it-” and Geralt hushes him with a nod. Information unoffered is that way for a reason, and if Jaskier wants to be a wandering bard then so be it. It’s not Geralt’s place to judge a past left behind. 

He knocks at the door, shoulders drawn up tight. The woman who opens it does not look surprised to see him, but there is an unpleasant curl in the corner of her mouth. “You’re back,” she says, and Jaskier nods, and she sighs. “I’ll fetch your father, then. Come in.” 

The house is rich and cold. Geralt cannot place Jaskier in it and he wonders absently at a childhood here. Jaskier, too, is quiet, hands playing together nervously, and his face when he sees his father is strange. Twisting, unhappy, eyes down to the floor. He does not like to see the bard like this, but there’s nothing he can do. 

They sit in a library. Geralt’s uncomfortable in the velvet armchair and Jaskier chooses to stand. 

“You stole my son,” the man says, his voice and face hard. Jaskier flinches, but Geralt can tell it’s not the words so much as the voice because he does not yet understand. The Witcher does, though- he’s seen nearly everything, but this he’s only heard of. He glances from him to his father and back, a pained look in electric blue eyes. 

“He is your son,” Geralt says anyway, voice hard. “And it’s not his fault.” 

“My son is  _ dead _ ,” he spits, angry. Jaskier closes his eyes. They leave. 

“Have you heard of changelings?” Geralt asks, hours later. They have made camp because Jaskier doesn’t want to stay there, unsaid but understood. He keeps his voice low- he is not suited for being gentle but he does his best anyway. 

“I’m not,” Jaskier protests automatically, and then stops. He is still very pale, very quiet, sucked dry of his exuberance and life. 

“Switched at birth,” he says, and then repeats, emphatic: “It’s not your fault, Jaskier.”    
  
“I never knew why they hated me,” Jaskier says quietly, all stripped clean of the happy walls he puts up. It is strange to hear his voice naked like this, a vulnerable underbelly. Geralt hesitates. 

Jaskier likes physical contact. He reaches out a hand, and the bard latches on immediately. He is squeezing so tightly his fingers are white. A comfort easily given, but Jaskier looks like he’s been offered the world. He feels that tug in his lower belly, familiar at this point. 

“Why now?” he asks, voice a little stronger. Some color is back in his cheeks, and it’s good to see. 

Geralt hesitates. “Glamours are placed on the fairy children at birth,” he says, slowly. Jaskier’s fingers tighten, just a little, but his face remains relatively composed. “They wear off over time. Usually in the first ten or so years, but-” 

“But not always,” Jaskier finishes for him. He closes his eyes. “So I’m not human?” 

“No,” Geralt confirms. He pauses, shrugs. “But you’re still Jaskier.” 

That makes the bard laugh, sharp teeth glinting in the firelight, and Geralt squeezes his hand just a little in return. It feels fragile against his big Witcher fingers, but he knows it’s strong. 

-

A Witcher and a fairy walk into a tavern. The fairy is laughing and the Witcher is smiling, a uptick at the corner of his mouth, and both are familiar from songs and stories and legends. They travel the Continent in search of monsters for coin, and the fairy has been singing of it for one hundred years. An epic, a love story, with no sign of an end. 

**Author's Note:**

> another immortal jaskier? YES! i cannot accept the transience of human life. 
> 
> prompt from per-aspera-ad-astera-universe on tumblr: "Hello! I heard you are taking prompts? Do you ever thought about mystical creature Jaskier? Maybe smth like fairy in Maleficent? As for why he looks human, it’s probably glamour? Or his real parents put a spell on him and made him forget who he is to protect him. But glamour starts to slip and Geralt is starting to notice things about Jaskier " as always this is. more loosely translated than i mean to but thank you SO MUCH for the prompt and i hope you like it i love u
> 
> if u liked this PLEASE leave a comment i will hold your name in a locket kept close to my heart and i will be buried with it 
> 
> also pls send me an ask or a prompt over at redjewelsforeyes.tumblr.com ily

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